NATO

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a full-throated defence Wednesday of President Donald Trump's military operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, while explaining to US lawmakers the administration's approach to Greenland, NATO, Iran and China. As Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered starkly different readings of the administration's foreign policy, Rubio addressed Trump's intentions and his often bellicose rhetoric that has alarmed US allies in Europe and elsewhere, including demands to take over Greenland. In the first public hearing since the Jan 3 raid to depose Maduro, Rubio said Trump had acted to take out a major US national security threat in the Western Hemisphere. Trump's top diplomat said America was safer and more secure as a result and that the administration would work with interim authorities to stabilise the South American country. "We're not going to have this thing turn around overnight, but I

US President Donald Trump has withdrawn planned tariffs on several European allies after reaching what he calls a “framework of a future deal” with Nato on Greenland and Arctic security.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte insisted on Monday that Europe is incapable of defending itself without US military support and would have to more than double current military spending targets to be able to do so. "If anyone thinks here... that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can't," Rutte told EU lawmakers in Brussels. Europe and the United States "need each other," he said. Tensions are festering within NATO over US President Donald Trump's renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Trump also said that he was slapping new tariffs on Greenland's European backers, but later dropped his threats after a "framework" for a deal over the mineral-rich island was reached, with Rutte's help. Few details of the agreement have emerged. The 32-nation military organisation is bound together by a mutual defence clause, Article 5 of NATO's founding Washington trea

The department's long-awaited National Defence Strategy, released Friday evening, directs the Defence Department to 'maintain a favourable balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific'

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signalled that US President Donald Trump should apologise for his false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, describing Trump's remarks as "insulting" and "appalling." Trump said that he wasn't sure NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested, provoking outrage and distress across the United Kingdom on Friday, regardless of individuals' political persuasion. "We've never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them," Trump said of non-US troops in an interview with Fox News in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. "You know, they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." In October 2001, nearly a month after the September 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaida, which had used the country as its base, and the ...

Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, said the "sacrifices" of British soldiers during the war "deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect" as he weighed into the furor surrounding remarks that US President Donald Trump made about non-US NATO troops. Trump suggested in comments Thursday that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, drawing pushback in Britain including from Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Prince Harry, who had two tours to Afghanistan in the British Army, said the US's allies "answered" the call to stand with the country after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed," he said. "Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defence of diplomacy and peace.

No President has created so much doubt about America's commitment to trans-Atlantic security

The cold, hard reality facing any US, NATO or European plans for Greenland is the ice. It chokes harbours, entombs minerals, and freezes shorelines into minefields of white and blue shards that threaten ships all year. And the only way to break through all that is, well, with icebreakers: enormous ships with burly engines, reinforced hulls, and heavy bows that can crush and cleave ice. But the United States has only three such vessels, one of which is so decrepit as to be barely usable. It has entered agreements to obtain 11 more, but can only source additional ships from adversaries - or allies it has recently rebuffed. The key technology in the Arctic ----------------------------------- Despite toning down his rhetoric, US President Donald Trump seems set on the US owning Greenland for security and economic reasons: to keep what he calls "the big, beautiful piece of ice" out of the hands of Moscow and Beijing, to secure a strategic Arctic location for US assets, and to extract t

Trump has proposed invoking Nato's Article 5 to protect America's southern border, questioning whether the alliance would defend the US while reiterating concerns over illegal immigration

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that if the deal goes through, the US would achieve all its strategic goals in Greenland 'at very little cost, forever,' adding that Trump is hopeful about it

Trump's Greenland gambit may have paused in Davos, but it signals a deeper erosion of the rules-based order as great powers test how far coercion can go

Denmark's prime minister insisted that her country can't negotiate on its sovereignty on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he agreed on a "framework of a future deal" on Arctic security with the head of NATO, and she has been "informed that this has not been the case." Trump on Wednesday abruptly scrapped the tariffs he had threatened to impose on eight European nations to press for US control over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. It was a dramatic reversal shortly after he insisted he wanted to get the island "including right, title and ownership." He said "additional discussions" on Greenland were being held concerning the Golden Dome missile defence programme, a multilayered, USD 175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space. Trump offered few details, saying they were still being worked out. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement that security in the Arctic is a matter for all of NATO, and it i

Barely a month into his presidency, Joe Biden had a message for Europe. "America is back," Biden told the Munich Security Conference in 2021. "The transatlantic alliance is back." It was a promise Biden delivered often as he sought to cast the disruptions of his predecessor, Donald Trump, as an anomaly. But nearly five years later, Biden's assurances have proven short-lived. In his second term, Trump has cast aside alliances forged over seven decades with Europe that helped lead to the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has hectored leaders, making demands and levelling accusations more commonly associated with enemies. In the process, he has rocked the stability that has sustained the relationships and left countries to chart a course without US leadership. The most stark example of this shift has been Trump's threat to take over Greenland, dismissing the nation as a large "piece of ice" as he demanded that Denmark cede control to the US, a move that

Decision follows Trump's talks with Nato chief Mark Rutte on a future Greenland and Arctic security framework, prompting the US President to drop planned tariffs on European allies

Trump brushed aside EU resistance on Greenland, confirmed a call with Nato's Mark Rutte and raised the prospect of tariffs, testing European unity ahead of Davos

Intimidation," threats and blackmail are just some of the terms being used by European Union leaders to describe US President Donald Trump's warning that he will slap new tariffs on nations opposing American control of Greenland. European language has hardened since Trump returned to the White House 12 months ago. Now it's in reaction to the previously unthinkable idea that NATO's most powerful member would threaten to seize the territory of another ally. Trade retaliation is likely should Trump make good on his tariff announcement. A year into Trump 2.0, Europe's faith in the strength of the transatlantic bond is fading fast. For some, it's already disappeared. The flattery of past months has not worked and tactics are evolving as the Europeans try to manage threats from an old ally just as they confront the threat of an increasingly hostile Russia. Trump's first term brought NATO to the brink of collapse. I feared that NATO was about to stop functioning, former Secretary-General

Norway's PM Jonas Gahr Store has clarified that the government plays no role in the Nobel Peace Prize, and decisions are made by an independent committee after Trump linked the snub to Greenland

The strategic importance of Greenland is growing, and Nato has underinvested in Arctic security, but President Trump, intent on ownership, is rebuffing deals with Europe to solve the problem

NORAD routinely conducts sustained, dispersed operations in the defence of North America, through one or all three NORAD regions (Alaska, Canada, and the continental US)

Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday that a fundamental disagreement over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after talks in Washington with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But the two sides agreed to create a working group to discuss ways to work through differences as Trump continues to call for a US takeover of Denmark's Arctic territory of Greenland. Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the US acquire the world's largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable. Denmark has announced plans to boost the country's military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a US takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland. Denmark is ready to explore what is doable' on Greenland, even amid disagreements with the US Leaders from Denmark and Greenland say they don't agree with Trump on t